Incident & Escalation Lead- Enterprise Customers

Job Summary

In this functional role, youll advocate for customers inside GitLab, coordinate teams toward resolution, and lead relationship repair after the event.

Support Engineering at GitLab believes that healthy teams deliver a healthy customer experience, and that command during a crisis shouldnt fall to whoever happens to be senior and available. GitLabs global Incident & Escalation Management (IM/EM) function coordinates critical incidents, complex multi-team engagements, and executive-level escalations for enterprise customers. As Escalation Manager, youll own complex, executive, and commercial escalations where customer trust and the relationship are at stake, alongside or independently of a technical issue.

What youll do

• Own complex, executive, and commercial escalations end-to-end, as defined in GitLabs IM/EM engagement model.
• Advocate for customers internally and coordinate Engineering, Support, Product, Customer Success, and Sales toward resolution, tracking commitments and holding owning teams accountable to agreed dates and deliverables.
• Maintain a written, customer-facing resolution plan from engagement through confirmed resolution, updating it at each communication milestone.
• Coordinate with Incident Managers during concurrent technical incidents to maintain a single, coherent narrative for the customer.
• Own external escalation communications using GitLabs approved templates and cadence, and represent GitLab in high-stakes customer conversations where clarity and ownership influence retention.
• Engage Sales, Customer Success, and executive stakeholders as needed, including executive-to-executive communication for Severity 1 and 2 events. Brief GitLab leadership with concise summaries that distinguish whats known, whats unknown, and next steps.
• Lead post-escalation reviews and relationship repair plans, contribute corrective actions with named owners and due dates to postmortems, and hand the relationship back to the accounts Customer Success Manager at resolution.
• Partner with the Head of IM/EM to develop playbooks, communication templates, and process improvements based on patterns from escalations.

What youll bring

• Experience in enterprise technical support, customer success, or incident and escalation management at a business-to-business software-as-a-service or enterprise software company.
• A track record of owning complex, multi-stakeholder escalations end-to-end, including executive customer engagements and structured resolution or account plans.
• Executive-level written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to translate technical detail into plain-language updates for customers and GitLab leadership.
• The ability to coordinate Engineering, Support, Product, Customer Success, and Sales under pressure without formal authority over those teams.
• Calm, structured decision-making with incomplete information and the ability to provide a steadying presence in high-stress customer situations.
• Proficiency with support and coordination tools such as Zendesk, Salesforce, Slack, and PagerDuty, or equivalent platforms.
• Availability for on-call coverage supporting executive escalations as part of a globally distributed team.
• Nice to have: Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) Foundation or equivalent certification; customer-facing experience with GitLab, development, security, and operations (DevSecOps), continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD), or cloud-native products; experience with formal escalation or incident command frameworks; or AI-assisted support tools for triage, sentiment analysis, or resolution drafting.

About the team

The Incident & Escalation Management function sits within Support Engineering in GitLabs Enterprise Technology & AI (ETA) division. We operate a follow-the-sun model anchored in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and Asia-Pacific, providing year-round, 24-hour coverage for enterprise customers. Our Escalation Managers work globally rather than within a single region, partnering with Incident Managers, Communications Leads, and regional Support Engineering leadership. Youll help shape our playbooks, templates, and standards as we scale.

Disclaimer: This job posting has been aggregated from external source. Role details, content, and availability are subject to change. Applicants are advised to confirm the latest information directly on the company website before applying.